Posted
by
timothy
on Sunday March 20, 2011 @04:30AM
from the polygamy-is-fine-unless-you're-married dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Police in Michigan have arrested 34-year-old Richard Leon Barton Jr. on charges of polygamy, thanks to incriminating wedding photos on Facebook. The man unfriended his first wife on the social network before marrying his second wife, but unsurprisingly that wasn't enough."

It makes no sense to me that something like polygamy is an arrestable offense. Aside from the mediocre tax breaks you get from marriage, what are the benefits that you can glean from multiple marriages that would cause it to be inherently illegal?

Actually, concubinage isn't really that different from marriage. The difference was just that concubines, unlike wives, didn't bring a dowry into the relationship. Most societies that permitted multiple concubines also permitted multiple wives. It was just easier to attract multiple concubines, as they were generally poorer women who lacked the options available to dowered girls.

Banning polygamy (or same sex marriage) is yet another example, like outlawing smoking marijuana while at home, or blocking teens from drinking with parents' permission, where the State is acting like the Church to enforce their moral values, instead of allowing individuals the Liberty to "pursue happiness" in whatever manner they choose.

Laws are written to protect the supposedly weaker one and can't be fine-tuned to accomolate every situation but the line must be drawn somewhere if we accept the notion that the law should protect the weaker ones from ignorance/abuse from somehow more powerfull part. On the marijuana case it can be argued that it protects the "state monopoly" to alcohol and cigarettes more than the user from dangers of marijuana, but blocking teen drinking (even if they had permission from their parents) is there to protect

Well - most polygamists seem to have a Good Old Boy network, in which one guy turns his daughter over to his old drinking buddy, and the favor is passed along until it comes back to him. All those 30 to 80 year old men telling their 13 to 15 year old daughters who they have to "marry" is pretty damned disgusting to me. While technically not pedophilia, it sure comes close!

Given a case where two or more grown women KNOWINGLY marry the same guy - well, I couldn't care much less. Stupid broads will get pret

I agree with you 100% - the disgusting part is the abuse which often for some reason begins when girls are at their (early) teens.

My point was just that - from a lawmakers point of view if you agree that you must protect these women you have to draw some lines to be able to enforce efficiently - otherwise the law is a dead letter. And so far the line has been drawn in quite a lot places to that you can't be legally married and enjoy the privileges and the recognition of the society to married couples with m

>The reason it is banned is not because of some religionCitation needed

> it is because polygamy can and historically has put> women in a "bad contract"By "polygamy" you refer to "polygyny" - one man, multiple wives. There is another form called "polyandry" where one woman marries multiple men (often brothers, "fraternal polyandry").

So in polyandry, would you say that one woman has more power than her husbands? Or could perhaps the dynamic wind up being that she is a lonely servant to a household of men?

>The reason it is banned is not because of some religionCitation needed

Yes, churches calling them christian are mostly against polygamy, but there are counter-examples. I really do hope that the reasons of society banning polygamy do lie elsewhere.

> it is because polygamy can and historically has put> women in a "bad contract"By "polygamy" you refer to "polygyny" - one man, multiple wives. There is another form called "polyandry" where one woman marries multiple men (often brothers, "fraternal polyandry").

So in polyandry, would you say that one woman has more power than her husbands? Or could perhaps the dynamic wind up being that she is a lonely servant to a household of men?

Being outnumbered is not the same as being empowered.

I would not say yes based on history, but I do know that counter-examples exists. My point was that banning polygamy (and yes, that means mainly polygny, sorry that I don't know the exact varieties in English because this is not my first language) is based not on religion, but in (at least I hope...) to the fact that it often enough

>>The bible doesn't actually prohibit having multiple wives. However, it does say that monogamy is a prerequisite for certain roles in the church (deacon, bishop, etc).

Right (1 Tim 3:2 and Titus 1:6-9 address this). A lot of people don't know that.

Polygamy is never outlawed in the OT; in fact, Levirate marriage (basis for the ancient Jewish social welfare program) completely doesn't work in a monogamous society. Jesus uses Levirate marriage as an example in one of his parables on the afterlife (and doesn't say anything bad about it at all, to the contrary he treats it as a norm), and Paul said that you could be a polygamist and a Christian at the same time, even though he kind of hated sex in all forms. So people like Luther have grudgingly accepted polygamy as being Christian.

In a nutshell, the RCC reads the requirement for a bishop to be faithful to his wife to *really* be talking about them being celibate and married to the church. Which is quite ridiculous, since those same passages talk about the bishop also needing to be a good father to his children (http://bible.cc/1_timothy/3-4.htm), but I guess once you start in on a metaphor, you can ride that train as long as you want to.

St. Augustine, who is usually pretty good at theology, tried to explain why polygamy was fine *then* and not *now* with the following: "As the many wives of the ancient Fathers symbolized our future churches of all nations, subject to the one man, Christ, so the bishop, who is the husband of one wife (unius uxoris vir) signifies the union of all nations, subject to the one man, Christ." Which is certainly an interesting, though not particularly compelling explanation.

In a nutshell, the RCC reads the requirement for a bishop to be faithful to his wife to *really* be talking about them being celibate and married to the church. Which is quite ridiculous, since those same passages talk about the bishop also needing to be a good father to his children (http://bible.cc/1_timothy/3-4.htm), but I guess once you start in on a metaphor, you can ride that train as long as you want to.

To add to this, Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 5 verse 7 that you probably should get married, lest you'll be tempted. Arguably, the entire Catholic Church's problems with sex abuse is because they directly go against Paul's advice.

He violated an implied contract. It would be better if the marriage contract explicitly spelled out liquidated damages for infidelity, but it is certainly grounds for divorce. No, I'm not sure why this needs to be a criminal matter either, other than that law enforcement has a lot more power to investigate than a spouse does.

What I find even more interesting, is due to DOMA and the weird way we treat homosexual marriages in this country, it's possible that someone could marry a person of the same sex in Massachusetts, move to Texas, and marry a person of the opposite sex, and Texas could not technically charge the person with polygamy. But then, if the person ever went on vacation (or even just had a layover in a city in a state that recognized both marriages) then they could be arrested in that state for polygamy.

Seriously, this is the whole reason why "full faith and credit" was supposed to be in the Constitution, to keep these sorts of weird ass "am I married in _THIS_ state though?" questions from coming up. Like, there are people in Texas who have been denied a divorce for a legal marriage performed elsewhere, because another state let them get married out of state, but won't allow an out of state divorce, so they have to get divorced in the state they live in, but since Texas doesn't recognize the marriage, it won't grant them a divorce... so they're stuck being married unless they move back to Massachusetts or whatever it was.

Seriously, FULL FAITH AND CREDIT PEOPLE... it causes a lot fewer headaches...

What I don't get is why Christians get so frigging bent out of shape over polygamy saying "ZOMG if we allow gay marriage then polygamy is next." Do they even bother to read the frigging bible? Practically every single prophet and great king (including King David, the greatest of the kings) had multiple wives. What the fuck is the big deal with it?

I have a better idea: Get government out of the business of marriage and deciding who can and cannot marry. After all, marriage is first and foremost an expression

The history behind why it is illegal goes back to the Mormon prosecution and was used as leverage against the early settlers of the Salt Lake Valley. I don't know all the specifics about it but it wasn't a crime until the late 1800's.

Tax evasion, I guess. Over here (.nl) married couples can fine a combined tax return that results in the couple paying lower taxes than they would have paid as two separate households.Also things like inheritance (spouses pay a lower estate tax).

Oh, dear foreigner, how quaint; you assume that in the United States are laws are reasonably applied and rationally carried out. I am afraid to break it to you, but our justice system does neither of these. The laws that forbid polygamy don't have any such thing as tax structure as their logical basis. If anything, the basis outlawing such things is religious and perhaps even biological (if somewhat gray-area between bonobos and gorillas).

Ask people who want to marry, but are not allowed to. It's close to impossible to give a long-term unmarried relationship the same legal status as a marriage (workarounds like power of attorney tend to not as reliable).

I still think that it's rather funny that the country enforces a single marriage lifestyle. In reality, people should be allowed to do damn near whatever they want as long as it doesn't negatively affect the rights of others or the environment (too seriously).

To me, the 'single spouse' law would be like a 'single car' law, which pretty much wouldn't affect me at all but I could still laugh about and have debates about from time to time. On one hand, I'll never have two spouses/two cars. On the other hand

As an appropriate parallel - what about the case where the auto makers only manufactures a limited set of cars and you are left without the ability to purchase one? Keep in mind that public transportation has been made illegal.

Yeah, well - it was going to prison he did the first time he disappeared. Ironic, isn't it?
Furthermore, I'm haven't a clue how it works in the US - but here in Sweden a marriage is a legal economic partnership which implies mutual economic liability (I'm going to be a bit surprised if it isn't roughly the same in the US). Entering a new partnership without declaring nor disolving the previous partnership would be viewed as a fraud in any other circumstance, so why not when the partnership is labeled "marr

Contrary to some comments here, I am all about learning new FB horror stories. These stories provide me useful real-life evidence that I use when advising my friends (and my students) why they shouldn't ever post things that might get used against them. Think 10 times before hitting 'submit'.

The same way they deal with gay marriage -- they don't reconize it, and if you try to file official paperwork trying to get the financial and legal benifits of marriage in the State of Michigan for one of these unreconized marriages then you will be denied.

There's a lot of bible-thumpers here (in Michigan) outside the major cities that give lots of people hardships for trying to do things above board.

Rhode Island recognizes common law marriage. Assuming that it was a common law arriage, hasn't the accused a reasonable expectation to be divorced after unfriending his wife on Facebook, and generally stopping interacting with her?

Why is polygamy illegal?Lawyers haven't found a way to exploit it yet.

See, if 2 people get a divorce, then there's half of everything, and that's a big chunk for the lawyer to work with.

But, if 3 people get a divorce, that's only a 3rd of everything per lawyer.

This continues ad nasuem: if you have a rockstar with 100 wives, that's only 1% of his wealth sniped by a gold digger. What kind of tabloid headline would that make? "Golddigger wants divorce, wins 1% of Brad Pitt's fortune!"

So you see, preposterous. If it bucks the trend of lawyers taking all the money, it ain't gonna happen.

Given that neither wife knew about the other, this is definitely not polygamy. Polygamy is defined as "a marriage which includes more than two partners", and as the "partners" were in separate, distinct, relationships, this does not count.

What we have here is a clear-cut case of Bigamy [wikipedia.org] on the man's part. Nothing unusual about that, as there have been many cases over the years.

Perjury probably. One of the things you're asked to swear to when you get married is that you're not married to anyone else.

And monogamy has a long history outside of Judeo-Christian writings. In general, societies enforced monogamy because otherwise men would marry a whole bunch of women, have a whole bunch of kids with them, be unable to support them, kick the mothers out, and carry on with the younger girls. You could argue that with mandated child support, and women in the workforce we've outgrown the n

> In general, societies enforced monogamy because otherwise men would marry a whole bunch of women

and leave back an army of unmarried angry young man. As to my knowledge the ban of polygamy was primarily to prevent a few wealthy old men marrying dozens of young women off the market and leaving hordes of young men without a way to reproduce, leading to explosive social unrest. The Bible had nothing to do with it, the Old Testament, on which the model of the Mormon practices and scriptures was based, was highly polygamous itself.

I guess it depends. In many societies, there was a glut of unmarried women - men having a much higher mortality rate due to general risk-taking behaviour, and of course, war. The mortality rates changed post-marriage, when women's mortality rates jumped due to childbirth.

Perjury probably. One of the things you're asked to swear to when you get married is that you're not married to anyone else.

Not being a US resident, nor being married, I cannot help asking if the oath in question does not depend on the ritual itself? That is, not all rituals have an explicit question of other marriages. Or is it a part of the mandatory paperwork?

I'm not a US resident myself, but when I got married in Australia, I had to sign a statutory declaration prior to the wedding itself. It wasn't requested by the church, it was required by the state. I assume that it's similar in the US.

Not being a US resident, nor being married, I cannot help asking if the oath in question does not depend on the ritual itself? That is, not all rituals have an explicit question of other marriages. Or is it a part of the mandatory paperwork?

It's the paperwork. The marriage ceremony is, well, ceremonial. Without a government issued marriage license, the government generally does not recognize that the marriage exists (which means that for the purpose of taxes, social security, etc, the two people are still single).

(there are "common law marriages", which are still legally valid in some states in the US, that require no marriage license, but these are becoming rarer and rarer - only 9 states still allow them).

It shouldn't. At least not marriage itself. It's the family that needs legal protection. Think of the children.

The only logical reason for regulated marriage is to create a stable environment for raising children. Otherwise it would be a civil contract like any other.

You can have a partner for whatever purposes you both agree to. You can start a business, a charity, a club, a scientific society, or you can just agree to live together. That's why I think this "gay marriage" thing is so stupid. Unless you int

Until greed comes along. What gay partners want is not recognition, they are after the pensions and tax benefits that were created for families. It's one thing to give a tax break so you can pay for your kids education, it's a totally different thing to give a tax break so you can sustain a grown man who should be working for himself.

Except the tax breaks aren't for families; married couples without children are eligible for them too. That makes it an issue of fairness, not greed.

Also, by the way, some gays reject the compromise of "civil unions." They, at least, do want recognition.

Except the tax breaks aren't for families; married couples without children are eligible for them too

There's a slippery slop there. Many couples plan on having children, they make decisions based on that. To be fair, a couple that does not intend to have children is cheating on the system.

A totally neutral system would do away with all tax breaks for dependents, but it sucks to be born in a family that cannot sustain itself, so we give children a break. They never asked to be born, did they?

Except the tax breaks aren't for families; married couples without children are eligible for them too.

Actually, the deliberate tax break is for having children. More dependents -> less tax.

The tax break you're talking about is entirely unintentional. It comes from two people combining their incomes to file jointly. It used to be that if one partner made a lot and the other little (as was typical in most marriages back in the 1960s when this was first addressed), filing jointly would offer a tax be

B) If people did listen, our population growth would crash hard and not walk away. Can you guarantee you'll have a job for the next 16 years so you can support your kid? Well, if you lack psychic powers, do you at least have $220k [about.com] on hand in your emergency cash supply dedicated to raising the kid and not to be touched for any other emergency? No? Don't have a kid.

why should I have to pay for all of your children's education(s) with my tax dollars in the first place?

Because civilized society has agreed that the burden of providing some essential needs for those who cannot afford them should be shared by everybody.

There are couples, both gay and straight, that want marriage primarily for monetary purposes

I can guarantee you that no straight couple ever got married for the tax breaks, because it doesn't pay enough. But for gay couples that's the only plausible reason for wanting gay marriage regulated by law.

Oh yes, because it's written in that holy book from an ancient goat-herders culture that we somehow think still applies to live in a world that is so radically different.

Uh, cite? Seriously, I mean it...:)

You'd actually be hard-pressed to find prohibitions against polygamy in the bible. During the periods of time that "goat herding" were prominent economic activities it was actually fairly mainstream for the well-off.

Monogamous relationships seem to be a basic part of stable human societies. Polygamous societies have, by definition, a shortage of suitable mates for young men; young men need to "prove" themselves to have a chance at a mate, which tends to involve violence, aggression, etc. That is oversimplified, but the pattern is clear to see: societies with widespread polygamy tend to be economic disasters with frequent civil wars.

With a broad brush: most of Africa is traditionally polygamous, and most of Africa is a

Monogamous relationships seem to be a basic part of stable human societies. Polygamous societies have, by definition, a shortage of suitable mates for young men; young men need to "prove" themselves to have a chance at a mate, which tends to involve violence, aggression, etc. That is oversimplified, but the pattern is clear to see: societies with widespread polygamy tend to be economic disasters with frequent civil wars.

With a broad brush: most of Africa is traditionally polygamous, and most of Africa is a mess. Most of the Middle East is polygamous, and is a mess. Asia is a mixed bag: those countries that are doing well economically are mostly or entirely monogamous (China, Japan, India, etc.); those doing poorly tend to be polygamous (e.g., Bangladesh).

Er, China has a long history of polygamy, and was arguably one of the more stable countries throughout world history. They really only got fucked up under the communists, who were also monogamist-or-die type fellows. The richest guy in Macao (IIRC) has a few wives even still, and in modern Hong Kong the practice remains, though they're simply called mistresses now. It's considered acceptable (by everybody except the Christians) in Hong Kong, though under the don't-ask-don't-tell policy that governs a lot of Chinese public/private life.

To paint a broad brush, every society has always been monogamist for the poor, and polygamous for the rich. Belle Ãpoque France, ancient Israel, whatever. In modern America, we have Tiger Woods, Letterman, and the rest getting money and sleeping around. Not saying it's right, but it is certainly not anything new.

Every one of those countries that allows polygamist unions also has laws limiting the rights of women. Men are allowed multiple wives, women are not allowed multiple husbands. Men can divorce easily, women cannot. These problems some try to attribute to polygamy are NOT inherent to polygamy itself, they are caused by polygamy as defined within some religious doctrine wherein women are not free as men to come and go.

If you have a society where women are required to be so modest they even have to wear head sc

"Oh yes, because it's written in that holy book from an ancient goat-herders culture that we somehow think still applies to live in a world that is so radically different."Understandable knee-jerk, but all lifetime of biblical study finds all kinds of condemnation of homosexuality, all kinds of condemnation of adultery, all kinds of condemnation of fornication, but the only scrap of anti-polygamy I can find in the bible is one line in Timothy where it is recommended that an ideal church leader "should only

>>And polygamy is illegal why, exactly? (assuming that all involved are ok with it)>>Oh yes, because it's written in that holy book from an ancient goat-herders culture that we somehow think still applies to live in a world that is so radically different.

Monogamy stems from the Roman tradition.

Not from the ancient polygamist goat-herders that you hate so much. You'll find nothing in the holy book outlawing polygamy. To the contrary, really.

Oh yes, because it's written in that holy book from an ancient goat-herders culture that we somehow think still applies to live in a world that is so radically different.

Nope, according to that book polygamy is A-OK. All the great prophets and kings had multiple wives, and yet YHVH considered them righteous. And, since according to Christians God is eternal and unchanging, if it was okay then, it has to be okay now.

Now, while "all things are permissible" not all things are for gain, which is why for rabbis/

If a man could marry n women, and each of these women could marry n men, each of which in turn could marry other n-1 women, wouldnt this allow for a possible situation where every man is married to everyone, or connected to everyone through a chain of marriages? (Which would, by the way, basically lead to a redefinition of the Kevin bacon number to through how many marriage nodes somebody is married to Kevin Bacon.) (And to a renaming of Facebook to be a "marriage network", etc.)

While I agree with that point, I believe not all women are whores who will marry for financial status alone. People do still marry for love. And since women are supposed to be equal and have jobs of their own, think about a three-way marriage. Two people working, one staying at home will be much better off than a couple with only 50% income (compared to the two thirds).

Another underlying problem: I personally believe that a three-way relationship can only work if everyone in it has a relationship with both

It is not that easy, yes. But, wealth has correlation to finding a mate. Sorry, I don't have a link in English available but social studies have shown that women tend to marry above "their level" (counting both social status and wealth) and men do the opposite - even in societies which are highly rated on man-woman equality. This leads to the fact that there are more single wealthy females than males and more single poor males than females. There of course are other factors in the play - it is not clear-cut

He could have been on Facebook in 2004, provided (as you mention) that he was in an Ivy League school. I am fairly certain that by the end of 2004, he could have had a Facebook with just a.edu address. However, the quote you reference doesn't explicitly say that he met his first wife on Facebook, it just says they met in 2003 and they met online. Heck: that could have been on AC2 or EQ or a MUD or etc etc.

Really? Because, you know, multiple [wikipedia.org] other [nytimes.com] sources [crunchbase.com] say [imdb.com] that Zuckerberg started the prototype in September of 2003, and what we know as Facebook was launched in February of 2004.

If I recall rightIy, my vt.edu [vt.edu] email address allowed me to register sometime in late 2004 or early 2005. On campus, it was starting to generate a lot of buzz as a great tool to bring lots of people together on short notice.

Your response is typical of what I was talking about though -- memory is a strange and elastic thing. You've been

If you read the linked MLive "source" story [mlive.com] and its followup [mlive.com], all the Facebook stuff happened early- to mid-2010. The estranged first wife got back in touch with the man (to let him know that their 6 year old son had autism) via Facebook about a year ago. He unfriended her a few weeks later, which they describe as a few months before the second wedding (which was in July 2010).